


Oh, Never

by Arendweller



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Elsamaren Summer 2020 (Disney), F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, i feel like I overdid the angst last time so here have some remedial fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25240036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arendweller/pseuds/Arendweller
Summary: 4 times the spirits had to intervene + 1 time they didn't have to, in the year of.
Relationships: Anna/Kristoff (Disney), Elsa/Honeymaren (Disney)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42
Collections: Elsamaren Summer 2020





	Oh, Never

**Author's Note:**

> July 13: Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Love...Wait, What?

AUTUMN

_Upper body strength,_ Maren reminds herself, _is the crux to training._

More than hour into her routine, Maren can feel the sweat cool her on her bare shoulders and arms, pooling near her collarbones and trailing down her back, even through her cropped top and shorts.

_The sure-shot key to success when it comes to working out_ , Maren reinforces, is —

And just like that, her vision goes blank.

Well, not blank.

More like off-white.

With black strokes and lines scattered across? _Wait, what is this thing?_

Maren picks away the piece of paper from her face, the page flitting loudly in the breeze.

_What in the world?_ She wonders, still holding onto the sheet with seemingly some sort of markings on it. 

A gust blows in again, sweeping Maren's semi-undone hair across her eyes. _When did it get so windy today?_

Hurriedly pushing her hair back in place with her free hand, Maren is just about to unfold the piece of paper when—

"Maren, wait!"

On her left, she sees Elsa — hair swirling wild in the wind — running up to her.

"I'm sorry about that.", She takes the page from Maren's hands, tucks into a book of sorts that she's carrying.

"It's no problem." Maren says, pliant.

"I didn't notice when it got so windy all of a sudden." Blonde, unruly wisps take over half of her face, cling to her lips when she speaks.

"Oh yeah. Me neither. Weird day today, huh? Wonder who made Gale so angry."

"Yup. Sure." Her voice sounds thin, meek.

"So, did you see—" "So, what was that all ab—"

They both start together, then stop too.

"Oh it's just," Elsa starts explaining, one hand trying still trying to find purchase of her strewn hair, the other clutching the book close to her chest. "a hobby of mine. I like to draw sometimes, and, uh, I guess that one just slipped."

"Is that why you're here? For inspiration?"

"What?!" Elsa asked, a bit shriller than was required. Maybe she misheard something? _The wind sure_ was _getting louder,_ Maren found as she heard hollow whistles in her ears.

" _I said_ ," she spoke louder, " _is that why you're here?"_ She gestures 'here' with her hand. "In the middle of the Lichen Meadows?"

"Yeah, yeah. That and some privacy, you know?"

"Same as me, then." Maren says with a smile forming. "I come here to train."

"Oh wow, I didn't know that." Elsa averts her gaze, and flicks her hair when she says it. Maren knows that she's probably distracted, what with her hair disheveled like that, but it honestly almost looked like she was flicking more hair _into_ her face rather than away from it.

"Hey, uh," Maren speaks up again after a while, "do you wanna get out of here? Go back to the village, I mean?"

Another flurry of air erupts, and sends some of Elsa's hair across Maren's cheeks, striking and slapping and caressing.

They were soft, glossy. Smelt nice too.

"Sorry about that. You know what? I think it's a good idea to get out of here."

"Sure, let's go." Maren says and turns around with her, to the direction of their village.

"So Elsa," Maren prods, "any chance I get to see those drawings of yours?"

Something like a laugh comes out of her. "Oh, never."

__________________________________

  
  


WINTER

_She's really adjusted to this place, hasn't she?_ Maren thinks to herself.

Herself, Elsa was patting a half-asleep Bruni now and then across it's back, sketching something away.

_She certainly has._

"Whatcha got there?" Maren asks, shifting next to where Elsa sat.

Hands quick as a flash, shut the front of the book and shielded it.

"Oh. Just. Nothing, really." Elsa says sheepishly.

"More of your sketches, aren't they?"

"Uhh—"

" _I knew it._ You know you're gonna have to show them to me one day, right?"

"I have to?"

"Mm-hmm" Maren nods.

"And why would that be?" Elsa retorts, tone teasing.

"Well, obviously," Maren singsongs, hand extending to Elsa's laps. 

It looks as if though she's reaching for her little art book, but instead she pets Bruni, offers him her open palm to get on. He complies happily.

"It's because we're friends, silly." Maren says in babyspeak, looking at Bruni who she's holding up to her face.

"We are?" Elsa asks, tone soft and lilting. Eyes fixed on Maren.

Turning her gaze to Elsa, Maren replies, "well, it depends."

She brings her hands — and the seated Bruni on them — down to her lap. He rests by her knee, which she notices, is pressed against Elsa's.

"Depends on what?"

"For starters," Maren answers, "on when you're planning to show me those sketches of y—."

It stops her in her tracks. The heat. The smell of…of _smoke._

"Bruni!" Elsa exclaim. Thankfully, she's caught on him too. 

Stretching on his legs from Maren's thigh, he stuck his mouth out — _teeth and tongue aflame_ — to nibble on the strings of Elsa art book thing that held it shut in place.

"Bruni, no!" Maren joins, holding him by his abdomen and lifting him up.

"You shouldn't have done that! What if you had burnt her art down? What if someone had got hurt?" She voices her worry, making sure her it was level and even.

Huge, saucer-like teary eyes take form as Bruni whines, tilting his head to the left.

"Oh Bruni," Elsa says.

"It's alright. We caught it in time so nothing bad happened. There's not much damage either, but. Just don't do that again, okay?" Elsa soothes him, scratching under his chin.

And just like that, he was wagging his tail again.

_Spirits. So moody._

Seemingly as apology, Bruni jumps out of Maren's hands, encircles the put-out bonfire place before them, and reignites it.

He jumps back, preparing to sleep with his head on Maren's knee and body on Elsa's. 

"Aww, isn't he adorable?" Elsa coos.

"Sure is." Maren agrees. "So when can we move again?"

Elsa mock-thinks. Then she opens her little book, guards it from Maren's view with a slate of ice, and starts sketching again.

"Oh, never."

__________________________________

  
  


SPRING

The Earth comes alive in the months of spring.

No, literally. It does.

It's not like Maren can think about it any other way

She knows firsthand what it's like to sit atop a hill under a tree, realising full well they must be doing so _on the face of an earth giant under what must probably be their facial hair._

"You're still thinking about it aren't you?" Elsa asks.

"Don't tell me you're not."

"I'm not."

_"What do you mean you're not?!—"_

"Here we go again." Elsa mumbles, putting her sketch pad away and absorbing the curtain of ice.

_"How could you_ not _be thinking about it? We're sitting on an earth giant. Under one of their body hairs! Hopefully the good kind!"_

"It's a crabapple tree, Maren."

"Tell that to the little person probably sitting _on my cheek under one of my hairs and freaking out about it."_

"Of course, Maren." Elsa says, faux smile in place.

She leans forward, breath falling on Maren's cheek, and focuses on a spot.

"Hey little person sitting on Maren's cheek under one of her hairs! This is Elsa! I just wanted to tell you that Maren and I are ourselves sitting under a crabapple tree and if _you_ happen to be anything like her, you should also probably listen to your best friend!" Elsa finishes with her fake cheery voice intact beginning to end, and leans away.

"You're crazy, you know that, right?" 

"You were bothering me. It had to be done." Elsa says, arms crossed.

"Bothering you with what, exactly? I've got no clue what goes on in that little sketch pad of yours."

"And I plan for it to stay that way."

"Why? What've you got in there? Mystery sketches of a vessel ship that launches itself into the stars?"

"Don't be ridiculous. That's not possible." 

"Well," Maren states, "I know it has to be _something._ " 

"And so w—" Before she can finish that thought, the ground starts shifting. 

_Breathing,_ Maren would say. If she could speak, that is.

It moves up, then down, as if the soil were fluid. In vacillating forms, buds bloom into flowers and back into buds. Leaves and grass sway side to side, showing off their iridescence.

The crabapple tree above starts to shed, too. Dropping it's pink and plum leaves to the astonishment and amazement of the two sitting underneath it. 

It lasts about one, one and a half minute at best.

Then it goes right back to normal.

To nothing.

No movement. No dances.

Just perfectly normal.

It isn't until Elsa leans in again into Maren's face — _(inches away) —_ and plucks out a petal — still fragrant — out of her hair, that Maren realises she can actually believe her eyes.

"What just happened, Elsa?"

"I have no idea, Maren."

"I'm never going to get over this, am I?" Maren asks, answer obvious to her.

"Oh, never."

__________________________________

SUMMER

"I don't see anything my reindeers couldn't have done as well."

"Wh—" Elsa did open her mouth, made some noise passing for a syllable, but didn't get much past that.

Instead she covers her face with her hand.

"You're saying—," Elsa musters, words reflecting her diminishing patience. 

"—that you _don't_ think—" she brings her hands together, joining them.

" — that there's not _any_ , _any_ difference —" she takes a step forward. Maren is starting to get scared. Maybe she went just a bit too far this time?

" — between your domesticated reindeers and the water spirit guardian Nøkk?" On that last word Elsa lifts her eyes up to meet Maren's, clear and blue and _threatening._

"Well," Maren says, voice pitchy, "I never said that—"

"Then what are you saying, _Maren?"_

"I'm only saying that, _well,_ I can't really see the difference until you show it to me, right?" Maren breathes. She really hopes it works. 

But the jury, namely Elsa, is out on that. 

More specifically — an expressionless, tight lipped, dead-stared Elsa.

"Let's go." She says it so quiet and flat, Maren fails to register it.

"What?" 

"I said. Let's go." Elsa says.

"We're going on a trip."

"What, and just leave my reindeers here?" Maren protests, arms flailing, gesticulating to their surroundings by the grassy sea shore, various reindeers in various stages of their meal.

"Yelana could have my head for this, you kn—"

"Ryder can take care of it." She looks sharply to Ryder. "Right, Ryder?"

Ryder, even from his 'safe' distance, isn't one to argue with Elsa like that. Won't even reply, in fact. Just shoots a scrunchy smile and a thumbs up and averts his gaze.

It's not that Elsa's wrong. It's just that she's. Well. _Scary._

_Chicken,_ Maren thinks as she looks away from Ryder and back at Elsa.

From the sea, a flurry of movement uprises, and shapes itself into the form of a horse.

"Come on," Elsa says, offering Maren her hand.

_At least that was a good sign.  
_

"Let's show you the difference."

Maren has had her share riding reindeers, so it's not like she's unaccustomed to riding a steed.

But the riding behind Elsa part, though. Well. That was different.

"You know," Maren says sitting behind her. Her face is all but tucked into the crook of Elsa's neck like this, when she has to speak. "My reindeers don't have much of a mind of their own."

"So?" They're so close that Elsa really doesn't need to turn her head back, but she still does. It makes their noses brush.

"Your ride does."

"And? That should count in favour of Nøkk, right?"

"Mmm. No, don't think so."

In her position, Maren catches a whole whiff of Elsa's hair. It reminds her of a day, very windy, when they weren't as close as they are now. Physically or otherwise.

"What? Why? What is it now?"

"Aren't you worried she could just dissipate and leave you stranded in the middle of the ocean? And by stranded I mean drowning."

Elsa chucked, about something apparently, and Maren felt it _down to a vibration._

"Aren't you forgetting something?" 

"Huh?"

She saw Elsa free one of her hands, wave it around, and a whorl of ice and magic wrap itself around the air.

Right. Elsa doesn't need to worry about drowning in an ocean. She can just magic herself an ice raft or a boat or a naval army or something.

There are, however, other ways for a guardian spirit of water to rebel, though. 

Take for instance: making a sharp, wrong turn in the direction away from where they were headed.

Or ignoring the riders' cries and complaints.

Or even dumping the two of them on a stray piece of land distant but only a long walk away from where they were picked up in the first place.

And if all of the above happened? Well, then it would be only freakishly familiar to the betrayal Elsa and Maren had experience at the hooves of the Nøkk.

"I knew it. I knew this would happen." Maren picks herself up from the ground with a groan, dusting herself off.

"Oh, _sure._ You just _knew_ this would happen, didn't you?" Elsa counters, half mad at the Nøkk, half mad at looking stupid in front of Maren.

_What was Nøkk thinking? Why would she do such a thing?_ Elsa ponders, scraping a leaf away from her person.

_It's not like she's hostile towards Maren or anything. If that were the case, they wouldn't have been able to mount her in the first place._

Wondering, wandering, Elsa looks back to Maren. Except she isn't standing there anymore.

_She was there just now, where could she have —_

_"_ Elsa!" Maren calls out from a distance, 

"Get over here!"

It takes a scant few seconds for Elsa to locate Maren — who had moved just a few strides away and got covered up by the lush trees she was standing next to — and get to her. Unbeknownst to Maren, Elsa actually knows this terrain pretty well.

"Maren, what is it? Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, Elsa. It's what I found."

From inside the hollow of the closest tree trunk, Maren pulls out a lantern.

A very familiar one.

"This is Northuldran." Maren voices. 

"What is it doing here, of all places? This land is for pasturing. Nobody comes here."

Elsa keeps mum, no fitting answer coming to mind.

"And look," Maren points to the ground. A trodden, used path uphill revealed itself, but only to the well-groomed eye. Which had to be Maren, of course.

"We have to follow this." Maren says, already having begun her climb. Elsa follows quietly behind.

A few minutes go into it, into Elsa hoping Maren doesn't notice the snowy grass they trail behind in the middle of the summer as they walk on, and :

"What would anyone even get up to here?" Maren rambles, "It's not like there's—"

Maren stops herself with a gasp, and Elsa knows.

They are there.

On the top of the hill was a table, made of ice. A canvas holder. Geometry boxes, rulers. A cupboard and chair. There's even a 'couch', made of snow.

In late summer.

"Elsa?"

"Maren"

"What is this?"

Elsa walks from behind Maren, stands before her and puts forth a watery smile.

"Welcome to my art nook, I guess."

After an awkward, endless moment has elapsed, Maren repeats, "Your art nook?" 

Sighing, Elsa explains, " I just needed some privacy."

"Elsa. Even you can see it. This isn't private. This is a freaking _lair."_ Maren hisses.

Although Maren can understand and empathize — theoretically — with Elsa's need for privacy and _artistic individualism_ or whatever, that Elsa may have felt safer or inspired over here, created herself a little work zone of her own, that she may not be feeling amazing about being busted and could use a bit of kindness— 

Although Maren can understand — theoretically — _all_ of that, she's still overcome by something much stronger than understanding. Something sentimental. Something illogical. Something … like betrayal. Like she's being lied to.

"I'm sorry, Elsa. I know you are well within your right to have a — a studio of your own, I guess? But. I just. Ugh," Maren says, failing to vocalise her own emotions.

"I just want to understand. Why did you need this? I don't think us Northuldrans are so intrusive as a people that you didn't get time and space to yourself to draw. Or paint. Or whatever. There are plenty of people doing it down there who don't have a secret hidey-hole, _and they're doing fine!_ So I just—"

Maren catches herself catching something in her throat, unsure why she was feeling this way.

"Listen, I'm sorry of I'm not reacting the right way. I'm sorry if I'm hurting you or not saying the right words or feeling the right way. _Spirits,_ even _I_ don't know what I'm feeling. But it just. It just felt like _lying,_ you know? Like, Ryder is your best friend this side of the Enchanted Forests, _and the two of us are even closer than that. And even I didn't know about this_. It just feels like— like you're pulling away, you know? I just." Maren sighs.

"I guess I just don't understand."

She breathes, and with that looks down at the ground, at her feet.

"You're right." Elsa says, quiet but sure.

"You're right about it. I did that. Pulled away. Of course I had enough privacy in Northuldra. It wasn't about that. It was about my habit. My habit of—," Elsa sighs, crosses one arm over the other. 

"My habit of finding a hill or a mountain to run away and build a hideaway on it when things get anxious. It's a pretty specific bad habit, believe me, I know," Elsa offers a half-hearted chuckle. Maren smiles in response.

"But it was only ever about me. My fear. My paranoia."

"Your paranoia of what?" Maren asks with a calmer tone now.

"Of someone finding out. Of —of," Elsa struggles, "Of _you_ finding out."

"Me?"

Instead of replying, Elsa just watched Maren. For a moment, then two. As if she were waiting for something. Not from Maren, but from herself.

Then, she turns about, marches upto the icy cupboard (that, Maren realises, has got _Arendellian patterns on it_ ), and takes out a small box. In the same movement, she absorbs everything, all the stuff made of ice and snow, back into her hands.

She covers back the distance between the two of them, and holds it out to Maren.

"What's this? Don't tell me you're finally showing me your art to make me forget I ever saw this place." Maren tries to joke. Trying to crease out the situation. From the look on Elsa's face, it doesn't land.

The box isn't large, likely a trinket holder, but it feels heavy in Maren's hand once she takes it.

"It's yours now. Do whatever you want with it. Just. Please. No matter how you feel, please just go easy on me."

Having said that, Elsa makes her way down the path. Maren follows after her, not too far behind.

They walk in silence all the way back to the village. There, as Maren watches Elsa leave her with the box in her hand, she feels like she has lost something and gained it too.

"Elsa?" She asks, hoping she hides it well. The confusion. Desperation.

Thankfully, Elsa stops.

"I just have one question. Whatever this is, we can come back from this, right?"

Elsa, in response, looks back and gifts Maren the slightest hint of a smile.

"Oh, never."

__________________________________

+1

It's that time of the year when the summer gives way, but not to autumn; and fall itself is slow approaching. It's the grey area of the year. Uncertain, seasonless. At least it reflects Maren's heart well.

It has been a few weeks since Maren last saw Elsa. Since she received the box. The one she still hasn't opened yet.

Today, of all days, proves to be the most testing. Today, Maren is going to sit idly at home. With the box, also there.

Because today, the weather-watchers have predicted rainfall. 

Rain.

Not snow.

Not sleet.

Not hail.

Not any normal mode of precipitation for these parts.

No. Instead, they get dealt with one of the weirdest phenomenons ever. 

The kind that that makes the soil all gooey and the air all humid _and_ windy (somehow) at the same time _thunder and lightning (which she has NEVER seen before) occur while fat drops of literal water fall from the heavens and onto all of their forsaken heads._

So yeah.

Rain.

Maren hates rain.

.

.

.

No she doesn't. Who is she kidding? She hasn't got some personal vendetta against it. In fact, Maren hasn't got any kind of feelings towards the rain. Seeing lightning for the first time might be actually kind of cool, even.

The real reason she's being _like this_ is because there is actually _something_ she must distract herself from towards which, unlike the rain _,_ she has a _lot_ of feelings for.

A small, accursed box-worth of feelings for.

_Okay. That's it. This? This is it,_ Maren thinks, sitting up from where she was lying.

Crawling on her fours over to that box, Maren's face is full of determination.

Once the box is in her lap, with her hands on the lid, it fades. 

Elsa was scared that Maren would find out. She was _paranoid._ If Maren makes the wrong reaction, or interpretation, there would be no coming back from that.

Hands tightening over the lid, Maren counters herself.

_But if I get it right, she'll trust me more. She won't have to carry a secret around anyymore. She'll have a confidant. In_ me. _We'll talk about everything. Openly. Honestly._

_If I get this right, we could be_ closer than before.

Hands finding the end of the lid, Maren thinks:

_This is for Elsa._

And the box opens.

On first glance, the contents are strewn about paper. Some are stacks of them. Others disarrayed.

_There's her sketch pad_ , Maren recognizes.

It isn't the paper, however, that's important.

It's what's on them. _On every single one of them._

Maren.

Maren with her hair open. Maren from the side view. Maren on a reindeer. Maren with a flower in her hair.

During work out. In a close-up. With her eyes full view. 

With a shy look on her face.

And a sad one.

Sleeping with her limbs splayed out.

Sitting with her limbs splayed out.

It's all Maren. On all of them.

_Maren, Maren, Maren._

There's a section on the sketch pad dedicated to something like a moving picture. When Maren flicked the pages really fast, it showed her smiling small to wide.

A page detailing the cut of her jaw over and over again, line-by-line.

There's doodles, and there's portraits. 

In landscape orientation, and shadow effect.

There's nothing explicit, as such, but there's no way some of them — no, _most of them —_ weren't intimate, affectionate works of art.

_So this was it?_ Maren wonders. 

_I was her muse?_

And she would have happily have resigned herself to thinking that, until she found it. 

This sketch of Maren had a crown of hearts around her.

Maren's brows shoot up in surprise when she finds it, as does the heat in her cheeks.

Just like that, she can't stop finding them. There's another. And another. _And another._

Before she knows it, they are everywhere.

Having exhausted the contents, as well as herself, Maren let's the realisation of the conclusion flood her.

_Elsa has feelings for me._

With that, she falls right back onto the floor, hands on her face, mind playing a one-track tune:

_Elsa likes me Elsa likes me Elsa likes me_

There was an occasional shout of "No way!" and "It's impossible!" thrown about in that cacophony as well, but that's only natural.

_But this was the correct interpretation, right?_ Maren peeks an eye out from a gap between her fingers. 

_The one that will bring them together? And closer? And not the wrong one, right?_

She knew it. She knew there was only one way to find out.

_And she absolutely had to._

Up and out of her goahti, Maren reserves a moment to take in the weather around her. 

Grey clouds were rolling in on an already dusky sky, and some Northuldrans had actually set up little groups and _picnic clothes_ to watch the sky in rain for the very first time. 

Maybe she would have joined them were it not for more pressing matters.

Speaking of which, _where could Elsa be?_

"Ryder," she spots him, sitting with their grandmother, taking in the rainclouds, the promising breeze.

"Do you know where Elsa is?"

"Uhh, no? Isn't she in her goahti?" Ryder looks to Yelana, both confused. 

"She didn't seem very interested in joining any of us to watch the rain." Yelana informs her. "She should probably be in her goahti, if anywhere."

_Right. Of course._

It was only a short walk (sprint) to her tent. Feeling charged, Maren hurriedly folds the tent and looks inside.

It was empty.

_Wait. That wasn't supposed to happen._

Retreating, Maren pulls herself back.

Where else would Elsa be?

_Anywhere,_ came a troubling reply from inside her.

She could be anywhere. In the Lichen Meadows. By the river. Riding across the sea. Ahtohallan. Or Arendelle.

As she goes through the list, making her dejected way back, she distantly hears the lightning flash across the sky — _purple_ — and a rumble follow seconds later.

It causes an uproar in the children, pulling astonished sound from some of the adults too.

Maren's smiles at that. A good number of them had finally got to see a phenomenon they had only heard about. Some of the children had even put on their raincoats already, in expectation of an open sky of rain. 

Of course they should be delighted.

On Maren's behalf at least, she hopes, the children are delighted.

Not in the frame of mind to really think about it, Maren knows she wouldn't be joining in with the rest of them. She'll stick to her tent mostly.

Except, she hasn't got a say in the matter.

Small, wet pinpricks start it all. 

She isn't the only one to feel it. The realisation makes it's way around, startling one anticipator after another.

Varying levels of darkness — _resembling nothing short of watercolours,_ Maren appreciates — encompass them overhead. Lightning flashes again in warning of the crackle of thunder trailing behind.

When the breeze isn't carrying the cloud, shifting them around — it aromates the land with the scent of earth, of heartiness and frissons.

As they raindrops pick up their pace, so does Maren. She parts from the rest of her people, wishes them a healthy rain, but dashes her way to her tent, intentions to stay in resolute.

If only she had a say in the matter.

On the steps of her tent — hesitant and unsure — away from everyone's otherwise busy eyes — was Elsa.

"Maren." She says, spotting her. 

Had Elsa just been through the same thing Maren was coming back from?

If so, had Elsa seen the box, opened, and the sketches scattered about?

"Elsa." Maren responds, noticing the rain growing strong enough to start eclipsing their voices.

"Maren, I—"

"What are you doing here, Elsa?" 

"I-" Elsa knits her eyebrows together. "I just wanted to see you. It had been long enough and I— I just wanted to know. Hear it from you, I guess. Even though I could guess how you felt, from your silence."

"I kept away because I hadn't opened that box. Not until today." Maren says, stepping towards her.

The rain was getting to their clothes, now. Their heads and hair. A single drop on Maren's cheekbone dripped till her chin.

The surprise, between stray drops of water, is written across Elsa's face.

"Maren, why di—"

"Was I just a muse to you, Elsa?" Maren puts the question forth, accompanied by her heart on the line.

In the short middle of lightning flaring her face, the light in her eyes, Maren catches a glimpse of the truth before it comes out.

"Of course not, Maren." Elsa says, folding a soppy strand of her hair behind her ear.

Their faces are close enough for Maren to see the drops clinging to her damp hair like baubles, like crystals.

She is standing, unmoving, hands still clasped together at the front.

She is standing, unmoving, even though Maren has bridged the distance between them to meet her.

She is standing, unmoving, _(and this is important)_ waiting for Maren.

For Maren to bridge the distance.

So Maren does.

Their kiss is sloppy, clumsy.

Maren tucks Elsa's wet hair with her wet fingers, so it won't get in the way of her wet face. What an idea. 

_(A lovely one)_

Their noses brush coldly past one another, cheeks chilled but quickly warming.

They are kissing in the rain. They are drenched and kissing, _in the rain_ , and although Maren is very sure this is going to give them a deadly cold and kill them, she wagers it's also probably worth it.

All so that she can tell Elsa how much she likes her back.

Pulling away, Maren laughs into Elsa's mouth.

"I can't believe you drew nothing but me for a year because you liked me instead of telling me!"

Elsa smiles — lips shiny with rain, pink from Maren's . 

Their eyelashes are clumped with wetness, heavy with happiness.

Rivulets are streaming their way down the nape of Maren's neck, clinging to any surface — cloth or skin — almost as closely as Elsa's hands cling to hers.

"You're not gonna let me forget that one, are you?"

"Oh, never."

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Additional Personal prompt: Undercover Artist.


End file.
